Origins of the State

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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Yugoslavia was a state. Or was it.

The old Yugoslavia was composed of different ethnic groups and cultures, which was once consider a state. The groups that made up Yugoslavia were not treated as equals. the Serbs held most of the power. When Tito, the dictator who forcibly held the state of Yugoslavia together died, it fell apart because of the hidden tension that existed between the ethnic groups. Now the old Yugoslavia has split in many counties and different states. But once it was recognized as a state and for the most part people who lived in it felt it as such.

If all the ethnic groups had been treated as equals most likely Yugoslavia would have remained as one state. Canada, for instance, has managed to remain as one country or state even though it had two founding cultures that have conflicted, the English and the French. Nevertheless. the French Canadians consider themselves as a different state from the English. The French state, though, for the most part, has managed to reconcile its differences with the English to create one state or nation, Canada.

The French state in Canada is as equally represented as the English State in order to make one State. But it wasn’t always been that way. Canada was originally found by the French but the British defeated them. Since them it has been a struggle to keep it as one state. But it is determined to do so.

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Hello David.
I see what you’re saying but it does not detract from the core of my argument. You bring up two interesting examples of states: Canada and Yugoslavia. My contention is that the idea of state precedes govt and conquest. I also presume that after conquests the invading horde may succed in solidfying the conquered people into their idea or version of state by arriving at some measure of equality and identity. Religion has been a powerful tool in this endeavour by giving the conquerors the means to transform the alien population into something like themselves. Enough of a preamble. How would this apply to Yugoslavia and Canada?
As you point out: “The old Yugoslavia was composed of different ethnic groups and cultures, which was once consider a state.” The recognition of a state is both internal and external. It is very easy to recognize Iraq as a state…if you’re a westerner. Internally you have different groups and the Kurds for example are trying to establish their own state, so the idea of “Iraq” is not easy to be recognized internally. Likewise, because Yogoslavia was a composite state, it was held together not by a common identity but by common interest at best and through naked aggression at worst. “Yugoslavia” never became a state. It was an artificial entity from a Serbian govt which we can point out constitued a state.
The ethnicity of the groups presented an obstacle faced by growing states. Serbia was such a growing state because it was trying to absorb non-serbians within itself. But the members of state often prefer the enslavement of others than the absorbtion of strangers because it threatens their sense of identity-purity, something which of course was evident in the american democracy and it’s disparity between ideal and reality that all men are created equal. One of the rationales of conquests is that not all men are created equal and thus special priviledge is claimed by the conquerors. But if this mentality is sustained the tension within the artificial state is never resolved and burst every now and then and if consessions of equality are not given, eventually tear the “state” (which never really achieved unity but was a state over-above an enslaved sub-state) apart.
You say that: “Now the old Yugoslavia has split in many counties and different states. But once it was recognized as a state and for the most part people who lived in it felt it as such.” One can recognize a state, but not everyone can recognize it as their own state and that is a big difference because if the state is not my own, because perhaps I have another state, a muslim idea of state, it, the recognized state, is seen as illegitimate. It is recognized but without awe, without fidelity. Fear can keep one under one state while still being part of another state. This is what creates that tension you speak of. “Yugoslavia” was never their name.

You say: “If all the ethnic groups had been treated as equals most likely Yugoslavia would have remained as one state.” It is not just that- if, and that is a big if, all the ethnics groups had been treated as equals it still does not mean that you would have had a single state but a federation of states, each with their own ethnicity, but equal before a parliment of some other form of representative govt that allow for the fairness of each state within the federation. “Separate but equal” falls short of that american ideal that “all men are created equal”. It isn’t fairness but fairness due to what? Yugoslavia might have been created and sustained, had the fair treatment of the different ethnic groups had been due to their status as “Yugoslavs”, “South slavs” etc, which might have erased the ethnic divisions or supplanted ethnic or religious identities as the primary source of personal identity. I mean that individuals have different identities, for example you could have a person say: “I am half arab but all american”, or the adoption of the self-designation:“newyorikan”, which is an in-between phase in the process of absortion into a new state. But the speed of the disintegration of the state of Yugoslavia reveals that the idea of a single state, a “Yugoslavia”, was a manufactured concept that died along with the individuals trying to force it or the ability to continue it’s enforcement.
Now let’s deal with Canada.
Canada, as you say, considers itself as made up of two different states: the english-canadian and the french-canadian states, but peacefully co-exist…they have formed a federation in my opinion. Because the circumstances are tolerable, neither english nor frech identities has had a strong reason to be defended and has given ground to the identity as canadians and solidified the state’s internal recognition. How would this hold in a time of crisis? I don’t know. You got to remember that even though I speak of a “french” or of an “english” the truth is that these are no more real than the idea of “canadian” and that each identity can be further broken down, just as “canadian” can also be enlarged into a new identity. States are vital organisms, not tools, not caculated and measurable and obedient top prescise laws of logic or some other science.
The other consideration to be made is that a state is unified by conflict. The success of Canada’s govt to unify it’s constituents will be affected by the relative peace it can provide to eliminate the need for popular demarcations. This means that in time of want and scarce resources, populations create scape-goats to blame, dissociate because it gives them a measure of control, a causal link between their want and a cause they can control or take revenge against. The only way to avoid this dividing principle is to create foreign conflicts that require internal unity, because, strange as it may seem, we stop beating each other when someone else threatens to beat both of us. When I have no common enemy, I lose that social glue and differentiate myself from my neighboor through some concocted measure that is irrational.

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Hello Omar,

You speak of a possible digression in Canada if things turn for the worse, like the scarcity of resources. I think you are presuming to much. Canada, and most of the world I believe has gotten over that hump, that there is no longer any point of fighting over resources but to cooperate in maximizing what is left and discovering alternatives.

I think the postmodern world and its states have gotten over barbarism. That’s way in the past. (Perhaps you are to fixated with the “Mad Max” scenario.) The world has moved on. It is more a world of cooperation than conflict, not to say that there still wouldn’t be any more conflicts. The conflict of the future will be contained by the states of the world, like in the UN.

I prefer to thing of civilization and civility rather that individual state. Most of it is a state of mind anyway. Do you remember the movie “Brazil, a State of Mind”?

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Well David you must take what I said in context. I am not presuming that there will be a strggle, in the furture of Canada, for resources. I am using Canada here as an example and positing that internal conflicts that can dismember a state (stable or not) have a causal link to hard-times. This is all theoretical and does not apply to the current conditions in Canada but possible conditions for a state like Canada.
Now as far as presumptions go, let me point to yours:
1- You presume that there exist this “postmodern” world in which states “have gotten over barbarism”. Do you not see world news from Iraq, the Tibet zone, Israel and Palestine, Africa in general? Yeah…“that” is way in the past, right…so long as “past” means 1 second ago…
2- It IS a world of cooperation rather than conflict?? I know. You do not deny the existence of some conflict, but that the level of cooperation would be more. Yet we do not see this. You mention the way in which conflict will be resolved: the UN and cooperation between states of the world. Nothing could be more presumptuous given the entire history of the world after the UN was created. Has the UN prevented conflict? Has it resolved conflict? Can it cooperate to contain conflicts? Cooperation between states is rare while conflict is abundant. This is the way of the world premodern, modern and postmodern and anything else they will think to call the times in the future. I believe that this tread has successfully explained at least some of the factors that influence the instability of cooperation and the ubiquity of aggression.

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"Do you not see world news from Iraq, the Tibet zone, Israel and Palestine, Africa in general? Yeah…“that” is way in the past, right…so long as “past” means 1 second ago…’

You are talking about states or areas that are failed or are still backwards and haven’t, in a sense, grown up. And as Kant rightly speculated, democracies don’t go to war with each other. And for that matter, do you see America and China going to war over their differences, or China and Japan?

As the world pushes for democracy and its development, conflicts between states will decline further. There is evidence in history that shows this. I mean, look at the stability that has emerged in the Far East, even between China and Taiwan. Even the two Koreas are engaging in some form of détente. And Vietnam is now a friend and a trading partner partner of the US.

Furthermore, there was no ‘class of civilizations’ after 9/11 as many had predicted. Instead, 9/11 seemed to reinforce the status quo of states wanting more interdependence and globalization. The world proved that it did not want further serious conflict after 9/11, in the fact that so many states were again war with Iraq.

Globalization is transforming the world. That is the new ‘state’ and the future, which in many respects is already here.

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Hello David:

— You are talking about states or areas that are failed or are still backwards and haven’t, in a sense, grown up.
O- That is condecending of you. By what standard do you measure the maturity of a state?

— And as Kant rightly speculated, democracies don’t go to war with each other.
O- Interestingly enough potential foes such as Iran and Russia do hold elections, popular or a sort of parliment election, a representative voice of the peoiple (Iran’s “Assembly of Experts”). The US is currently in a collision course with Iran and will eventually have to deal with a more assertive Russian state…in spite of Kant we have no assurances as to whether democratic ideology will save the world from it’s oldest illness.

— And for that matter, do you see America and China going to war over their differences, or China and Japan?
O- We owe to much to the Chinese. We are a capitalistic nation and that I think has more to do with the peace that exists between the two countries. Greed trumps ideology in real-world-politics. It isn’t democracy then that stops the tide of war but free-trade.

— As the world pushes for democracy and its development, conflicts between states will decline further.
O- NO. It was a democratic system that gave us Hitler and now Hamas. There are societies that dislike us and what we represent and if you give them a choice, a vote, they will vote for candidates that represent their dislike for the US. One of the fears of every democratic dreamer is that there need not be secondary elections. A demagoge can come to power and as we see Putin now doing, retain his hold by using the system that is in place, democratic as it may be, to retain sole control of the state’s affairs for years and years.

— There is evidence in history that shows this. I mean, look at the stability that has emerged in the Far East, even between China and Taiwan. Even the two Koreas are engaging in some form of détente.
O- Look again at the news from the Koreas. The North is still being aggressive.

— And Vietnam is now a friend and a trading partner partner of the US.
O- That can be said of China too but this is due to capitalistic greed and not because of the virtues of democracy.

— Furthermore, there was no ‘class of civilizations’ after 9/11 as many had predicted.
O- The clash of civilizations, as I understand it (with due respect to Samuel Huntington, whose book I have yet to read) is evident in the lack of a moderate voice in the middle east. Sadr said that he would disband his Madhi army…once Sistani had asked for it. Did you see Sistani ask for such a thing? No. Theocracy is the idelogical opposite of democracy, not communism, and the islamic civilization, as opposed to western civilization, has religious tradition for the pursuit of theocracy, not for democracy Instead. Muhammed’s kingdom of Allah was of this world as opposed to Jesus after-this-world kingdom of God.

— The world proved that it did not want further serious conflict after 9/11, in the fact that so many states were again war with Iraq.
O- You mean “against”? It was not the world that was attacked, so why shouldn’t they oppose war? And while they opposed the war with Iraq they did not oppose the conductor of such war, nor did they oppose all war on principle but “this” war in particular. Ask them about the war in Afghanistan and you will find more support due to the direct causal link of Taliban and the 9-11 terrorist mastermind.

— Globalization is transforming the world. That is the new ‘state’ and the future, which in many respects is already here.
O- Globalization is hurting many states who lose out against the market giants…but this is worth of a thread of it’s own.

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Hi Omar,

Well, the world develops and progresses through perverse ways. If it take globalization, free trade and greed to make the world more peaceful, so be it. Obviously we haven’t be able to do it just through Reason and logic. It has taken dialectical materialism rather than dialectical idealism to change the world. And it is surprising how much the world is beginning to look the same, with skyscrapers and shopping malls in all its corners.

I think you are wrong. The world was attacked on 9/11. Like it or not, the center of world civilization was attacked on that day. That’s why it made such a good target, because it represented the world. However, the majority of the world felt the pain, believing if it happened there it could happen anywhere. World commerce stopped that day, effecting every corner of the world including the Arab/Muslim world. The world had become so interdependent that most everybody felt the attack. (That interdependence of the world is what prevented it from escalating into anything worse.)

Are you thinking that Iran and Russia are democracies? That’s what your argument seems to suggest.

Hitler was elected, sort of. Germany, though, was hardly a real democracy when it voted him in. During that time it was playing at democracy. For instance, It didn’t have the democratic institutes the US and Britain had that secured democracy from dictators like him. That is the chief reason for democracy, to keep tyrants like him at bay, to put the power in the hands of the people. Democracy is more than just about voting. The system to protect that vote also have to be in place for it to mean anything. However, look a Germany today, where there is no more communist East Germany like there was during the Cold War.

The Cold War is an interesting example how the world had matured after WW1 and WW2. The Cold War, for the most part, was not a hot war. It was an event that contained the Supper Powers from going to war with each other. That period gave the world the ‘breathing space’ to develop more ways of being peaceful, like free trade and globalization.

Sure there are still conflicts in the world, in the failed areas and the areas that haven’t yet become modern. On thing 9/11 did is churn things up in the Arab/Muslim world. That world is now seriously beginning to question its identity, bringing about much needed reform. The Arab/Muslim is under great pressure to reform because of global events.

In relation to the past the world is more harmonious that it has ever been. Who imagined that China would ever have the Olympics, such a worldly and peaceful event.

(Sorry for any grammatical errors.)

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— I think you are wrong. The world was attacked on 9/11. Like it or not, the center of world civilization was attacked on that day. That’s why it made such a good target, because it represented the world.
O- Just because they call it the “World Series” does not mean that the National or American Leagues of beisbol represent the world. The second target on 9-11 was the pentagon: How did that represent an attack on the world?

— However, the majority of the world felt the pain, believing if it happened there it could happen anywhere.
O- Not at all. Just look at reverend Wright. He’s not alone. Many have made his argument that the US had it comming and they see it as a slap in the “bully’s” face. Do you think cubans were worried about a terrorists attack? Of course not, and yet they are part of this world, so you can see why I disagree.

— World commerce stopped that day, effecting every corner of the world including the Arab/Muslim world. The world had become so interdependent that most everybody felt the attack. (That interdependence of the world is what prevented it from escalating into anything worse.)
O- World commerce, I assure you, did not STOP on that day. That is just a gross exageration. Stock trade may have been affected, I agree, but the Il Mercato over in Corso Sicilia, down by Via Etnea saw no effects. Stocks are not representative of all commerce.

— Are you thinking that Iran and Russia are democracies? That’s what your argument seems to suggest.
O- So far they are. Whether they last into the future as such is another matter.

— Hitler was elected, sort of. Germany, though, was hardly a real democracy when it voted him in. During that time it was playing at democracy. For instance, It didn’t have the democratic institutes the US and Britain had that secured democracy from dictators like him.
O- That is a dangerous thought you have there because it ignores just how easy it is for a system like a democracy to be used for a tyrant’s selfish purposes. Even in the ideal democracy Hitler would have been elected because the problem was not the democratic system available at the time but the economic crisis caused by the treaty of Versailles.

— That is the chief reason for democracy, to keep tyrants like him at bay, to put the power in the hands of the people.
O- “Tyranny” is in the eye of the beholder. It is not some obvious quality in a leader. Politicians are good are disguising themselves. The world is now plagued by elected tyrants- men who have assumed the reins of power through and by elections…so much for the power vested in people.

— Democracy is more than just about voting. The system to protect that vote also have to be in place for it to mean anything. However, look a Germany today, where there is no more communist East Germany like there was during the Cold War.
O- I agree, but then look at Putin’s switch of power. From the point of view of the majority of russians, they are electing the best leader in Russia today, but from an american point of view, they are electing a potential tyrant. Same with Hitler. Germans elected the best leader in Germany- not a tyrant. Had Germany won at Barbarosa, Hitler and his friends would have been elected by the people over and over again. It makes sense to speak of “tyrants” from an idealist, if not “Platinic” perspective, but absurd to speak of “tyrants” from a materialstic perspective. Machiavelli’s “Prince” (one could add “of Materialism”) would have been Plato’s or Xenophon’s “tyrant”.

— The Cold War is an interesting example how the world had matured after WW1 and WW2. The Cold War, for the most part, was not a hot war.
O- In the words of Goren Vidal, it was “Perpetual war for perpectual peace”.

— It was an event that contained the Supper Powers from going to war with each other.
O- Fear of atomic winters prevented all-out war between atomic powers. One could correct Kant by saying that it is not democracies that do not go to war with one another but that it is atomic-nuclear powers that do not go to war directly with one another, and then only so long as there is a danger. US can afford it’s aggressive stand against Iran because it is not yet a nuclear power. It can afford an agreesive rhetoric against North Korea because it is out of reach of said state’s missiles.

— That period gave the world the ‘breathing space’ to develop more ways of being peaceful, like free trade and globalization.
O- Not the cold war but the Fall of the USSR was the turning point- the victory of capitalism over communism.

— The Arab/Muslim is under great pressure to reform because of global events.
O- This is the Neo-Con mentality that led to the invasion and later rationalization or re-vision of the invasion from a practical matter of self-defense to one of idealism…but you cannot have it both way without leaving yourself open to the accusation of being a hypocrite. After all is said and done, I believe, the world will see that it was just a mirage. Events, after 9-11 and during the american occupation, have in fact relieved the arab world of that said “pressure” to reform and made it in fcat more resistant to any pressure as there is a correlation between gas prices and closed off goverments.

— In relation to the past the world is more harmonious that it has ever been. Who imagined that China would ever have the Olympics, such a worldly and peaceful event.
O- Just the march of the olympic torch has been anything but “peaceful” and “worldly”. We can only wait and see what happens in the actual Olympics, but I do not expect much. Again, I would not use holding an Olympiade as a standard because Nazi Germany held the Olympics as well.

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Omar, all I can say is that we both look at the world through different lens and never shall the twain meet. We both base the world on different principles. It’s like you see the glass half empty and I see it it half full. You see a world that is irrational but should be rational. I see a world that as irrational and recognize that is the best it has to work with.

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continued…

Yes, Germany was destabilized by the demands put on it by the Versailles Treaty, which enable the coming of Hitler and WW2. But had Germany then been the democracy it is today, with its multiple democratic institutions, Hitler would not have been possible. It seems like the world had to go through that experience in order to learn from it, so as not to repeat it again.

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Samantha Powers disagrees. She wrote a book that pretty much showed how things, even after WW2, even after the holocaust, are pretty much the same. Genocides still occur in Africa: Where is the allience to save them from extermination? How can we explain Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and Kosovo, after Aushwitz?

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I sorry, but I am taking about Germany, Those other places you mentioned are, in a sense, still going through the motions. Those societies still have to discover for themselves how to conduct themselves. One can’t impose conduct from the outside. Going back to the state, the state and its people have to learn for themselves. Why, it took Europe centuries to discover and learn that it could live in peace. (Yes, I know that parts of form Yugoslavia are still in a mess.)

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You know David, our differences can be summarized in a statement made by Hannah Arendt who spoke about “the banality of evil”. The Holocaust shook the faith in progress by demonstrating how easy it was to go back, at what was then the heart of Western civilization and it’s achievements, to a more barbaric stage of human development. I think that blind optimism ignores just what Arendt wanted to accentuate, which is that aggression is a part of us and that things like war and genocides are not some unexplained, unjustifiable, evil, but that it can be explained by the most mundane, normal and vulgar tendencies all humans possess. The Holocaust was not just the achievemnt of one Adolf Hitler, but of an entire world view that is found condensed in anti-semitism, racism- not to be confused- and sexism, if not some others that pop up here and there. The human mind is a perpetual organizer and cannot avoid creating hiearchies of truth and error, of good and bad or evil, noble and ignoble, moral and immoral. These categories are then projected into the perennial “Stranger”, what is not-Us. This process is more visible in times of crisis, of competition between groups but also in the struggle against the forces of nature. We circle the wagons, we hunker down and some group is left out to serve as a scape-goat where we deposit all of our frustrations.
Someone once said that we have the ability to love everyone…so long as enough remain for us to hate.
In Star Trek we see a world wide federation. The event coincided with what else but the discovery that there were other inhabited worlds. These became the new “Stranger”.

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It sounds like you don’t believe in human progress.

I remember what was happing in Yugoslavia in the 90’s , the ethnic cleansing, and how the Western world responded to it. It was a much different response than was sounded during the Holocaust. People wanted do do something about it but were not sure how to proceed. However, the turning point came with the scene of a train being filled with ‘undesirables’ and those who were of a different race to those who ruled Yugoslavia. The scene reminded people of similar scenes during the Holocaust and the horror of trains being filled with Jews, being sent off to concentration camps.

That scene in Yugoslavia finally persuaded the Western world to act and put and end to the ethnic cleansing that was going on. Now, you may not consider that a big deal but I do, that there truly was a concern about the ethnic cleansing that was occurring in Yugoslavia.

Like I said, we both see the world through different lens. I know the world is a shitty place. But I believe it is doing the best it can, considering its makeup, the shit and human nature. And that doesn’t mean we can’t do better!

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They certainly perform military action against each other.

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You’re right about human minds and all that.

Specifically though, humans have adaptations to categorize animals intogroups, this is called ‘folk biology’ and its largely based on a conceptual ‘essence’. Humans can throw a conceptual ‘essence’ on other human groups as a byproduct of having that for animal groups (at least when humans are dehumanized or worse yet demonized which I will refer to from here on in as wolfized).

When we categorize a human group mentally/conceptually as having a dangerous, evil, filthy essence, it readily lends itself to this sort of thing.

Humans have evolved a fear/disgust of parasites/germs, which again, can be superimposed on other HUMAN groups.

humans can put animal qualities on other humans by wolfizing them, making people no longer view them as fully human. (giving people animal like tendencies or explaining them as dangerous in that way).

theres a bunch of interesting cognitive shit to the mundane that you mentioned (i wouldn’t call it mundane because of my interest, but in so far that its fairly simple and innate, yeah) thats innately grasped unconsciously by people who propagate wars; showing the enemy as unclean/filthy, animal-like, subhuman and all this other stuff allows for a cognitive flip which shuts off our aversion to butchering innocents.

Its also painfully easy for us humans to slaughter people when we don’t need to see their faces.

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for example, on essences.

we can say: “Theres dog all voer the driveway” and it sounds grammatically correct to us. (if dog is strewn over the driveway from getting hit by a truck).

We cannot say “There is cup all over the driveway”
we cannot say “There is tv all over the driveway”

At least we generally don’t and most people inherently feel it sounds wrong. We say, theres pieces of tv, pieces of cup.

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You may be getting the wrong idea. There is potential in us and in the improvement of our condition, yes, I do not deny this. But listen to my qualification: “blind” optimism. One ought to remain optimistic but with open eyes. I don’t have to believe in “progress” that is evident at each phase in history. Rather, I admit of improvements but in a much more reserved way. Listen to my critique of progress. I say that if it is evident, then it is like a bush, growing, if you recall a bush, sideways as much as upwards. I don’t see progress every where, but that does not mean I do not see some form of progress, of improvement, some where.
Yugoslavia’s genocide was ended, thank God. But why did it take so long for the world to act on it? And what about the other places outside of white countries? Darfur for example. Rwanda. Yes, there is progress, but it is not that surprising. It follows patterns of human conduct. There is a moral narration and a realist/materialistic narration of human action. The moral speaks of the indignation felt by the knowledge that genocide was actually taking place (in todays political climate, ignorance is key in moral discourse- hence genocides are first and foremost denied even recognition because recognition of genocide demands action). The realist speaks of the coincidence of our selfish interests with the improvement of another society. While the first is preferred by the public, the second is the one that actually causes actions.
There are now many who apologize for past immoral acts…others that “use” the word “genocide” to describe what is going on in Africa or some other place and then do nothing, because the politician can be moraly disgusted at something and still not act. Once he acts, out of selfishness, then he calls upon moral indignation. For example Hussein gased kurdish tribes way back when but the US did nothing then but “denounce” the attrocity. Then, years after the fact, the US tied it’s actions in Iraq with the moral indignation caused by that immoral act. How convenient isn’t it?

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I think, by reading here and there your post to others, that you and I agree on the basic premise of using biology, along with a bit of metaphysics and idealism, to enlighten philosophical discourse instead of relying on idelaism and metaphysics alone.

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Omar,

You referred to “blind” optimism as though it was coming from me. I assure you I am no blind optimist. In fact, I said that I realized the world is a ‘shitty’ place but under the circumstance we are doing the best we can and in the process transforming ourselves.